Following a highly-rated presentation
at a recent national conference, leaders of children’s hospitals are ready to
take valuable lessons from the Community-wide Children’s Health Assessment
and Planning Survey (CCHAPS) process back to their communities.

Rick Merrill, president and CEO of Cook
Children’s Health Care System, and Larry Tubb, senior vice president for Cook
Children’s System Planning, presented “From Strategy to Benefit: A Promise
for a Healthy Future” at the {BOLD} Leaders Annual Meeting of the National
Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions (NACHRI) held in
Orlando, Florida October 11-14, 2009. An organization of children's hospitals
in the United States and other countries, NACHRI promotes the health and
well-being of all children and their families through support of children's
hospitals and health systems that are committed to excellence in providing
health care to children.

At the conference, the CCHAPS
messages included tips for linking community assessment findings with
strategic planning in their health care systems, conducting focus groups with
parents and children to provide context for survey results and engaging the
health and social services communities in the assessment process.

Some of the attendees at the
{BOLD} Leaders conference presentation noted that the CCHAPS presentation was
“the best of the NACHRI sessions,” an “outstanding presentation,” and it
“should have been a keynote type presentation.” Based on this
overwhelmingly positive response, attendees reported intentions to implement
children’s focus groups and reproduce the survey process in their own
communities. Specifically, they expressed strong
interest in following the CCHAPS process through 2010 and beyond to learn
about the long-term results from community initiatives that are
developed.

CCHAPS was also featured with
several other health assessment processes around the country in the fall 2009
issue of Children’s Hospitals Today, published by NACHRI. The article
emphasized the growing need for children’s health assessments and outlined
how CCHAPS will fill the data gaps in our service region and provide a
community vehicle for sharing information about children’s health
issues.

It is especially gratifying
for CCHAPS to receive national recognition this early in the process and the
positive response from our peers in children’s health care provides
additional fuel to our excitement about the Child Health Summit in January.
During this holiday season, we are especially thankful to be able to use the
CCHAPS process in our region to help NACHRI achieve its vision of a society
in which all the nation’s children achieve their health potential.

About
CCHAPS

Cook Children’s Health Care
System is a not-for-profit, nationally recognized pediatric health care
organization comprised of six entities – a Medical Center, Physician Network,
Home Health company, Northeast Hospital, Health Plan and Health Foundation.
Based in Fort Worth, Texas, the integrated system has more than 60 primary
and specialty care offices throughout North Texas. Its service region
includes Denton, Hood, Johnson, Parker, Tarrant and Wise counties, with an
additional referral area encompassing nearly half the state.

Cook Children’s is leading a
monumental endeavor to fully understand the current state of children’s
health and to better focus on improving the health and well-being of children
in our area. The effort, known as the Community-wide Children’s Health
Assessment and Planning Survey (CCHAPS), is the first known project focusing
solely on the overall health status of children. Cook Children’s Community
Health Outreach and System Planning staff are collaborating to steer the
CCHAPS process.

The ultimate goal of the
CCHAPS initiative is to benefit the community in which we live by joining with
community partners in an effort to improve children’s health.